Eight years ago, podcaster and writer Jenny Kelly began to reflect on her relationship with alcohol and how it fit into her busy life as a broadcaster and mother of two.
“I just had this voice in my head, it was very bizarre, it just kept saying: alcohol is not your friend,” she explains on the latest episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast.
Speaking to presenter Róisín Ingle, Kelly reveals it was a constant voice she couldn’t ignore any longer. “I kind of wanted to listen to that voice, I wanted to analyse it and see whether it was true.”
“When I sat back and looked at what I thought alcohol gave me, and the actual truth of it, I went, ‘oh my God, it’s giving me nothing’… All the things I thought alcohol was giving me were, in fact, a big flippin’ lie,” she says.
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What alcohol was giving Kelly was anxiety. “Like the worst,” she explains. “So this could be from drinking even one or two glasses of wine. I would wake up the next day and feel that awful ‘fear’ feeling.”
“And then the knock-on effect would be how I was with the kids, how I was in my day-to-day life. And I thought, am I actually going to be doing this now for the rest of my life? That does not make any sense to me.”
Since giving up alcohol altogether six years ago, Kelly says her life has become “a lot more sparkly and joyous,” though it took some people in her life a little longer to come to terms with her newfound sobriety.
“I remember being at an event. It was probably six months later and just the horror on my friend’s face: I wasn’t going to be having the craic with them, you know?”
“If I’m honest, I was scared of people’s reaction. I thought the worst thing in the world would be to be that boring non-drinker. You know, that person you don’t want hanging out with you.” Friends would ask, “can we have the old Jenny back for one day?… I found that very hard,” she says.
Kelly’s best friend and co-presenter on their podcast Jenny and Mairéad Now says it hasn’t impacted their friendship in any way and she completely understands her friend’s decision.
“It doesn’t change things. Jenny has never lectured me, and I don’t drink a lot… if we go out for dinner, some nights I might be like Jenny and have sparkling water, and other nights I’ll have a glass of wine,” she says.
The friends first met while working on the Ray D’Arcy show on Today FM more than two decades ago - Kelly is married to D’Arcy. Kelly and Ronan have just published their new book What We Know Now: Lessons on Love, Life, Loss and Friendship. Inspired by their own life experiences, the book explores failures, successes, and mess-ups and offers advice on how to navigate life’s ups and downs.
In this conversation, available in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts, the pair share the secrets to their 20-year friendship, the reasons each of them stepped back from their broadcasting careers, and their top ten tips for a happier life.
